How important is being in the federalist society at Chicago? Do Chicago's better stats in clerkships and academia compared to columbia/nyu go away if you aren't part of that or if you aren't a conservative?

bluedvl wrote:How important is being in the federalist society at Chicago? Do Chicago's better stats in clerkships and academia compared to columbia/nyu go away if you aren't part of that or if you aren't a conservative?

Not important at all. There is also an active chapter of ACS, and I would say that while the school is more conservative than many other law schools, that just means it is closer to an equal distribution of conservatives v. liberals whereas at many schools there are many more liberal students.

It's easier to get a clerkship if you're conservative, but that probably true at any school. This is because more than half of federal judges are conservative, and less than half of law students are. It also appears that conservative judges look for conservative credentials in their clerks, while liberal judges don't seem to care.

Most law schools need and don't have a token conservative on their faculty, so it may be easier to get into academia if you're conservative as well--but FedSoc won't evidence your conservatism in that context, your scholarship will. In any case, Chicago's FedSoc is not terribly well connected to the faculty, while the current ACS national chair is a Chicago professor.